Edward C. Hinds
Symposium
Featured Speaker
Mark C. Fletcher, DMD, MD, FACS
Dr. Fletcher is a board certified oral and maxillofacial surgeon. He received his B.S. at Boston College and D.M.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Fletcher earned his M.D. at Jefferson Medical Col- lege, graduating magna cum laude. He completed his oral and maxil- lofacial surgery residency and general surgery internship at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. Dr. Fletcher has been on the attending medical staff at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut for over 25 years, where he currently serves as section head of oral and maxillofacial surgery. He holds a faculty appointment as a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Division of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the University of Connecticut School of Dental Medicine, and has been actively involved in residency training at UConn for over 25 years.
Dr. Fletcher is a private practice partner / owner at Avon Oral, Facial, and Dental Implant Surgery. He is currently on the Board of the Connecticut Society of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, and recently served a two-year term as the CSOMS President. He has published and lectured nationally on various topics in oral and maxillofacial surgery, and serves as an editorial reviewer for the JOMS and the IJOMS. Dr. Fletcher’s clinical interests include office-based oral and maxillofacial surgery, dental implant reconstruction, corrective jaw surgery, and the treatment oral and maxillofacial pathology .
(This speaker has nothing to disclose.)
Ray Reid
Lectureship Speaker
Travis N. Rieder, PhD
Travis N. Rieder, PhD, is a bioethicist, philosopher and author, currently serving as Director of Education Initiatives and Associate Research Pro- fessor at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. He also has secondary appointments in the Departments of Philosophy and Health Policy & Management.
Travis has published widely in both the academic and popular literature on a variety of issues. In recent years, however, virtually all of his attention has turned to the ethical and policy issues raised by pain, opioids, and America’s problem with the two. On this subject, he has written for the medical, health policy, and bioethics literature, as well as popu- lar media outlets; he has advised hospitals and healthcare systems; he serves on work-groups and advisory committees for the CDC and NIDA. His TED talk on opioid withdrawal and physician responsibility has been viewed more than 2.8 million times.
In 2019, Travis published In Pain: A Bioethicist’s Personal Struggle with Opioids, in which he combines narrative from his own experience as a pain and opioid therapy patient with his expertise in philosophy and bioethics to identify, explain, and attempt to solve some of the most profound questions raised by pain and addiction medicine. In Pain received significant positive attention, from national publications and media outlets.
Program Speakers
John R. Zuniga, DMD, MS, PhD
Dr. Zuniga received his dental degree from Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts in 1978. He completed a general dental residency in 1979 and an oral and maxillofacial surgery residency at the University of Rochester, Strong Memorial Hospital in 1986. He received a MS and PhD in Neuroscience in the Neuroendocrine Unit of the University of Rochester, School of Medicine and Dentistry in 1986, Center for Brain Research. He was a full time faculty member of the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1986 to 2006. He served as the Program Director of the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery residency from 1992 to 2005 and was the co-director of the Oral and Maxillofacial Pain Program. He served as chair of the Division of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in the Department of Surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and Parkland Memorial Hospital from 2006 to 2020. He currently is a professor in the Departments of Surgery and Neurology at the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas.
Dr. Zuniga has authored over 185 contributions to the scientific literature. Dr. Zuniga’s major research interest includes regenerative neuroscience of the trigeminal nerve, acute and chronic orofacial pain and taste function. He has been the recipient of numerous research grants, contracts and awards. He has served as a consultant to the editorial boards of a number of scientific a nd c linical j ournals, s erved o n t he F DA a dvisory p anel f or d ental p roducts, t he examination committee of the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons and on several research, resident education and faculty committees for AAOMS, the OMS Foundation, the Osteo Sciences Foundation, and the ADA. He is a founding member of the Global Nerve Foundation and sits on the Board to Directors for the Foundation.
As an experienced trigeminal nerve microsurgeon, Dr. Zuniga has performed more than 300 nerve repairs. He also has clinical interests in TMJ disorders, benign pathology, dentoalveolar, and trauma surgery of the oral and maxillofacial region. He has completed several multisite, randomized clinical trials in acute and chronic pain and trigeminal nerve surgery using processed nerve allografts for jaw reconstruction.
(This speaker has disclosed the following: Consultant for Axogen and Beneficial Owneship in Global Nerve Foundation. Speaker Disclosure Mitigation: All reported relevant financial relationships have been mitigated by the organizing committee as of 10/4/2025.)
Issa Hanna, DDS, FACS
Dr. Hanna is an Associate Professor in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). He received a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he also attended dental school from 2000-2004, earning a Doctor of Dental Surgery Degree. He finished a one-year oral and maxillofacial internship at the now-historic Charity Hospital, Louisiana State University Health Science Center in New Orleans, between 2004-2005. He then went on to finish the final four years of his oral and maxillofacial surgery residency at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida. Dr. Hanna joined The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Dentistry’s Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in 2011. Since then, he has served on the Facial Trauma Team at Memorial Hermann Hospital and Ben Taub General Hospital in the Texas Medical Center. In 2013, he was appointed Chief of the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Service at Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital, where he continues serving in this role. He is an active member of the local and national Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery community. He is the past president of the Houston Society of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons and past chair of the national Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Cleft & Craniofacial Committee. He frequently lectures nationally, including on the topics of office-based anesthesia and dentoalveolar surgery, and runs a biennial national Office-Based Anesthesia Course. His research interests include office-based anesthesia and facial bone reconstruction.
(This speaker has nothing to disclose.)
Robin Snellings, DDS, MD
Dr. Robin Snellings is an Assistant Professor of Infectious Diseases at UTHealth Houston/McGovern Medical School. She completed her Infectious Diseases fellowship at UTHealth Houston in 2025 with a focus on immunocompromised patients. She serves as Medical Director of the Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy (OPAT) program at Memorial Hermann – Texas Medical Center overseeing patients discharged on intravenous antimicrobial medications. She also regularly staffs the Infectious Diseases consult service, caring for patients with a range of conditions, including odontogenic and maxillofacial infections.
(This speaker has nothing to disclose.)
Miguel Escobar, M.D.
Miguel Escobar is a hematologist and tenured Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Texas Health Science Center, MD Anderson Cancer Center and the McGovern Medical School in Houston, Texas. He is also the Director of the Gulf States Hemophilia and Thrombophilia Center and the Clinical Research Unit at the Univ of Texas HSC. Dr Escobar is a member of the World Federation of Hemophilia Board of Directors and past Chair of the Scientific and Standardization Subcommittee on FVIII/FIX & rare coagulation disorders for the International Society of Thrombosis and Haemostasis
Dr Escobar received his MD from the Universidad Libre in Cali, Colombia and did his residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Connecticut and fellowship in hematology/oncology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. He has won multiple awards, including the Physician of the year award from the National Hemophilia Foundation.
He has been involved in many clinical studies, including gene therapy resulting in a range of publications and is a member of several professional organizations. His main research interest is in hemophilia, congenital and acquired inhibitors and other coagulation deficiencies.
(This speaker has disclosed the following: Has a research grant from and is a consultant for Pfizer, Novo Norddisk, CSL Behring and Sanofi. Speaker Disclosure Mitigation: All reported relevant financial relationships have been mitigated by the organizing committee as of 10/4/2025.)
James C. Melville, DDS, FACS
James C. Melville, DDS, FACS, is a Tenured Professor in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston UTHealth and specializes in Oral, Head & Neck Oncology, and Microvascular Reconstructive Surgery. He graduated from the University of Michigan School of Dentistry in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 2005 and completed a General Practice Residency at the University of California San Francisco in 2006. He completed a residency in oral and maxillofacial surgery in 2012, followed by fellowships in oral, head, and neck oncology and microvascular reconstructive surgery at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital. He was appointed as the UTH OMFS internship director in 2017.
Dr. Melville has been awarded the Faculty Educator Development Award (FEDA) in 2019 by the American Association of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeons (AAOMS), the AAOMS Advocacy Challenge Coin by the AAOMS Board of Trustees and AAOMS Committee on Government Affairs in 2020, and the AAOMS Fellows Research award in 2023. Dr. Melville served as the President of the Oral & Maxillofacial Section of the American Association for Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research (AADOCR) / International Association of Dental Researchers (IADR) in 2023. He was appointed the President of the AAOMS Clinical Interest Group (CIG) in Neurologic Disorders 2023. He served on the International Academy of Oral Oncology (IAOO) as a scientific committee member for its 2022 conference.
Dr. Melville is a diplomate and examiner of the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and a fellow of the AAOMS, the American Academy of Craniomaxillofacial Surgeons, American College of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeons, and the American College of Surgeons. He has been an invited visiting professor and lecturer at over 20 academic institutions and he has written five textbooks on maxillofacial reconstruction and contributed to 35 textbook chapters concerning oral and maxillofacial surgery, oncology, maxillofacial reconstruction, microvascular reconstruction, and tissue engineering. In addition, he is the author of more than 80 articles in peer-reviewed journals. He is a reviewer for the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (JOMS), Triple OOOO Journal, Journal of Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery, Journal of Tissue Engineering, PLOS ONE, Bioengineering & Translational Medicine (Wiley), Journal of Biomedical Materials Research, Experimental Dermatology, Japanese Dental Science Review, FACE (Sage Journal), Ear, Nose, and Throat Journal (Sage Journal) and of Journal of American Dental Association (JADA).
(This speaker has disclosed the following: Consultant for Axogen, Kerecis, Proteocyte AI and SORG. Speaker Disclosure Mitigation: All reported relevant financial relationships have been mitigated by the organizing committee as of 10/4/2025.)
